Cyberattack map shows U.S. continuously under assault

The United States leads the world in distributed denial of service attacks, the pesky internet assaults that try to bring down web sites by overloading them with communications requests.

This is the finding of a useful new tool from Google Ideas and Arbor Networks that helps researchers understand cyberattacks around the globe now have a new. The Digital Attack Map visualizes anonymous data collected from over 270 Internet Service Providers around the globe to help users better understand distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks.

A DDoS attack occurs when an attacker floods a target’s website with high volumes of Internet traffic, making it difficult for users to access the site. In many instances, a targeted site will crash as it is unable to cope with the traffic.

The map’s data, gathered and published by Arbor Networks Atlas global threat intelligence system, is updated hourly. It shows attacks taking place between countries, as well as internal attacks from within countries.

For example, the United States, according to the map, is the country with the highest number of DDoS attacks being waged against its various websites and systems from both internal and external attackers.

While DDoS attacks are a relatively simple attack that can be executed cheaply, they can cause significant problems for businesses and activists dependent upon the Web as a revenue stream and a messaging platform.

The Digital Attack Map is only the latest of data visualization project published by Google Ideas.

For example, in Aug. 2012, the organization released a map visualizing the global arms trade.